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Nostalgia November 2019

Of Christmas Lights and Memories Bright; Hot Sox and Smoking Dogs

By Sharon Love Cook

Eventually, my husband retired his grandmother’s lights. Whether it was the blown fuses, the mini-shocks he received, or the smoking dog, he reluctantly packed them away. “You don’t see lights like this,” he said, shaking his head. Amen to that, I thought.

Twenty years ago my father died on Christmas morning. He was 100 years old. For a long time my feelings about the holiday were tinged with sadness. Yet time, mercifully, has a way of easing pain. Moreover, my dad, who enjoyed a good laugh, wouldn’t want his family to be solemn. And while I couldn’t work myself up to being “joyous,” I could appreciate the warm generosity inherent in this family holiday.

As a toddler, my son was not only joyous at Christmas, he was delirious. Very early Christmas morning he’d race into our room. “Mom! Dad! It’s Christmas!” Like many other parents, we’d been up late wrapping presents and attempting to assemble toys. Thus when our son didn’t get a response, he went to his father’s side of the bed. “Dad, it’s Christmas,” he repeated into his ear. When that got no results, he grabbed the cordless phone receiver and clunked him on the head with it. Needless to say, my husband did not awaken with joy in his heart.

Two years later, this same boy and best friend, Nicky, took it upon themselves to open all the presents under our tree. More than a dozen gifts from friends and relatives lay exposed, the wrapping paper scattered. By process of elimination, we identified many of the givers. Yet whoever bestowed the battery-powered socks (“Hot Sox”) remains a mystery to this day.

However, those socks came in handy the following December. Four days before Christmas, I took our son to the local animal shelter. I intended to make a donation and, at the same time, teach a lesson about giving. What was I thinking? We walked out with an eight week-old lab-husky puppy. I had plenty of time to think about that lesson while staring up at a January moon, waiting for Tubbs to “go toity.” At least my feet were warm.

Tubbs wasn’t the only dog that enjoyed Christmas. Gaylord Farquhar, our basset hound, was always looking to score holiday treats. He found them everywhere, even on the Christmas tree. One year we did traditional homemade decorations: strings of cranberries and popcorn along with ornaments made of dough. Gaylord ate it all. Every time he raided the tree, it crashed to the floor, sometimes pinning him underneath. Although it scared him silly, he was back the next day, sniffing out any remaining popcorn kernels or bits of moldy bread dough. The denuded tree was a pitiful sight.

My husband, meanwhile, embraced a family tradition: displaying strings of lights that originally shone in his grandmother’s house. “They don’t make lights like these anymore,” he boasted. Every year he got them out, each chipped bulb carefully wrapped in newspaper. When he finally attached all the strings and plugged them in, he created showers of sparks. This resulted in trips to the fuse box in the cellar.

He couldn’t accept that the ancient lights were hazardous. The felt material covering the cord was threadbare, ravaged by time and mice. The lights snapped, crackled and popped as sparks flew everywhere. Once, they even fell on Gaylord, sleeping nearby. Soon we smelled something acrid — Gaylord’s fur was smoking! My husband grabbed the watering can under the tree and doused him. Only then did Gaylord wake up.

Eventually, my husband retired his grandmother’s lights. Whether it was the blown fuses, the mini-shocks he received, or the smoking dog, he reluctantly packed them away. “You don’t see lights like this,” he said, shaking his head. Amen to that, I thought.

In any event, the lights live on in our treasure trove of family holiday stories. Like the memories of my dad, they glow a little brighter with each retelling.

 

Sharon Love Cook of Beverly, Mass. is the author of the Granite Cove Mysteries (Come for the Chowder, Stay for the Murder). Contact her at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ://tinyurl.com/y77btbas